


Keeping the Stars Apart

by mirandu



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-02-28 23:51:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2751761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirandu/pseuds/mirandu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And is your place in heaven worth giving up these kisses?  // Solas is still conflicted about his relationship with Lavellan when they arrive at Halamshiral.  She’s not.  And then there’s sex.  Eventually.  I swear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping the Stars Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:
> 
> I hate that formal outfit in Halamshiral with the fire of a thousand suns. And since I’m convinced that its main purpose is so that the developers didn’t have to design a bunch of different outfits, I’ve decided that, instead, our Lady Inquisitor got to wear a nice fancy dress.
> 
> Also, for the sake of my sanity, we’re pretending that the hat that kept clipping through Solas’s face never existed.

this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart  
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)  
\--E. E. Cummings

\----

He has been watching her all night.

He has tried not to. He has been aware of this tendency in himself, this way of hunting her from across the room, and has made a conscious effort to stop. He looks at her, then glances away. There are other matters for him to focus on, other scenes to observe. All around him are voices. He can hear laughter and the lilt of music, the rustle of fabric and the rhythm of the dance. The room is heavy with the scent of flowers and perfume. The air tastes of wine. Now that dangers, both real and perceived, have passed, the nobility of Orlais is intent on its revelry. Alcoves and antechambers are overflowing with murmurs and sighs. Everyone is drunk on celebration. Or perhaps just drunk.

But none of this holds his attention for long. His eyes return to Ellana, again, again. Through the glow of a hundred candles, he watches her move. Flickers of light gleam where they slide across her skin, painting her gold; the candles make a halo of her hair. It is almost like a spell, a subtle magic that draws him to her. She tilts her head. She smiles at a woman speaking to her. She turns away. He doesn’t.

She should look wrong, he reflects. Out of place. A Dalish elf dressed up in an elaborate Orlesian ball gown, gliding amongst human nobles who would take her for a servant—or worse—if not for the swathes of green and gold fabric that billow around her. Anyone can tell she doesn’t belong there. He can see the forest in her, if he searches: a sort of silence she carries with her. It’s there, in the way she steps, in her sudden stillness. A memory of leaf and wood, of shadowy glades and cool grasses. The others notice it, even if they don’t recognize it. She is separate from them, a part of their world, but not of it.

She should look wrong, but she doesn’t. She looks beautiful.

And he isn’t the only one watching her. There have been eyes on her all night, tracing the path of her steps. Some are curious, some accusing. Scornful. Admiring. Evaluating. Awed. Gazes latch onto her and linger, though no one—no one save him, perhaps—openly stares.

With those gazes come words.

Tales are being spun even now, as he listens. There she is, they say. The Lady Inquisitor. The woman their prophetess marked. For years to come, people will tell stories of the night the Herald of Andraste walked the Winter Palace, how she danced with the Grand Duchess, how among the glittering candles and all the talk of intrigue and betrayal, she stopped a coup and saved an empress. History will weave those stories into legend. Specifics will be changed, facts omitted. The truth will disappear within them, and so will Ellana Lavellan. Detail by detail, she is being altered, shaped beneath the gaze of her watchers. It has been happening all along, from the very moment she stepped through the rift. Through their eyes, she is becoming something else, someone else, whether or not she wills it, or even realizes it.

Tonight she seems to realize it.

Tonight it seems to unsettle her.

That is why he follows her out onto the balcony, he tells himself. That is why he asks her to dance, and then holds her so close he can feel her heartbeat thud against him. And that is why, when there is a break in the music and their dance ends, he keeps her hand clasped tightly in his and allows her to guide him past the open balcony doors, down through the cool shadows of the staircase, and into the gardens. That is why he stays with her.

In the garden, the air smells of rain, though the sky is cloudless and clear, bright with stars. He glances about them. Delicate blue flowers climb up the hedge behind them, twining amidst the green. The path beneath is made up of pale stone, worn smooth by the passage of years and the tread of countless feet. The area that Ellana has chosen is secluded, to a point—a small opening in the hedge, just off the main path, keeping them safely out of view of the palace—but it isn’t private, not really. Around them, he can hear the faint rise of voices. There’s laughter in the distance, and soft murmurs below the strain of music that drifts overhead.

Ellana releases his hand and turns, leaning back against the hedge. There’s mischief in her eyes, and a half-smile playing across her lips. He can guess why she’s brought him out here. She raises an eyebrow. An inquiry. An invitation.

Solas is the hunter once again. He moves toward her with slow deliberation, closing the gap between them. He sets his hands on her waist, sliding his fingers along the curve of her hips, and drags her body against his, quickly enough that she gasps. He feels the shiver that runs through her. She shuts her eyes. She tips her face up to meet his kiss—but he doesn’t kiss her. Instead, he delays a moment. He watches her, enjoying the shape of her hips beneath his hands, the way her lips are slightly parted as she waits for his kiss. He lets the seconds lengthen between them. One moment bleeds into the next.

She opens her eyes and frowns at him. “Aren’t you—”

Only then does he cover her mouth with his.

Ellana bites down on his lip. Not hard enough to hurt—much—but hard enough to demonstrate her irritation. She tries to wriggle away after that, but he wraps his arms around her, pinning her to him, trapping her hands against his chest. He kisses her slowly, lingeringly, but not as long as he would have liked, because, after all, here she is still their Herald, and he is still the elven apostate in her retinue. And even that is better than the truth.

“If you were hoping to escape, I suspect someone will still be able to find us here,” he tells her, drawing back from the kiss, but not quite able to remove his hands from her.

“Leliana has spies everywhere,” she agrees. Her face is flushed, cheeks warmly pink beneath her dusting of freckles. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the walls actually did talk to her. And if not her, I know very well someone is out there, overhearing. Everyone in this place is doing something scandalous. But… let me pretend, just for a moment.”

He inclines his head. He won’t deny her that. How can he, when he has been unable to deny it to himself?

That is what he’s been doing, all this time. Pretending. Imagining that moments exist separate from themselves—that he can remain within the space of a second, like some reflection of the Fade, caught unchanging.

This is one of those seconds, here, with her. He wills it not to end. He is committing all of this to memory: the lock of hair that has come loose, curling along her neck; the moonlight on her skin.

“Besides,” Ellana adds, and the mischief is back in her eyes. “A secret tryst in the gardens? I’m likely to go up in their estimation.”

“I would hardly call this a tryst.”

“You’re no fun.”

“True,” he says. “I am rarely accused of being such.” Overhead, clouds have rolled in, throwing shadows across them. He moves one hand from her waist to her shoulder, tracing the line of her collarbone with his thumb. “You are chilled.”

She gives a short laugh. “It’s this dress,” she says, gesturing down the length of it.

He will agree with her there. The gown has miles of fabric, all of them concentrated below the waist. She’d had to catch up her skirts with both hands and run through the servants’ wing earlier that night, having already kicked off the shoes their spymaster had so carefully selected for her. Solas suspects it was only magic that had kept her from tripping. She is barefoot still. Her toes peek through beneath the waves of skirt, almost hidden by the grass. Light skims along the fabric, deep green silk adorned with gold—not luxuriant enough to outshine the empress, Josephine had explained, but rich enough to draw the eye. But if there is an excess of cloth from Ellana’s hips down, there’s a dearth of it above. The bodice is thin gold lace, pulled tight; the wisps that serve as sleeves float along her arms. Her shoulders are entirely bare. The dress was clearly not designed for warmth or practicality. 

It does, however, provide him with an excellent view of her breasts.

“I barely recognized myself when they laced me into it,” Ellana continues, as though she’s unaware of where his gaze lingers—and perhaps she is, though that little smile of hers has returned. “My Keeper would be appalled.”

Solas is well aware of the disdain the Dalish hold for all things shemlen, but what he knows of Ellana’s clan would seem to indicate they’re more tolerant than most. “What would she say?”

Ellana works her face into a scowl. She pitches her voice higher, just slightly, doing what he assumes is an imitation of her Keeper. “‘Da’len, aravels are made for traveling, not for wearing.’ And then she’d use the cloth for sails. There’s certainly enough of it.” She picks at her skirts for a moment, running her fingers along the silk. “It is lovely, though. I’ll have to remember to thank Josephine.”

There is a catch in her voice, a hesitation in her words. “But?” he prompts.

Her smile falters. She swallows, and lets her hands fall. Her voice is soft. “I kept thinking… when all this was over, I would go home. To my clan. But I can’t, can I?”

He doesn’t answer her immediately.

He studies her: the small furrow in her brow, the way her eyes slide from his. She bites her lip. She turns her face away.

He has been lying to her about so many things; he will not lie to her about this. She is no longer the questing, curious girl who left her clan to seek what answers she could at the Divine’s Conclave. Nor is she the girl who stepped from a rift, unconscious and unknowing.

Solas had watched that girl, sat beside her as she slept. At first, it had been simply to examine the mark on her hand. His observations of her had been detached, mere information without the need for context. He had no desire to know her mind, nor her spirit. And so he had noted his features, but not considered them. The small nose, dotted with freckles. The vallaslin inked beneath her closed eyes. The slender curve of her shoulder. The delicate bones of her wrist. The shallow rise and fall of her breath.

She was beautiful, but many women were beautiful. That she was an elf had not weighed with him. It was her hand that concerned him, not the points of her ears.

And then—

Then he had taken her other hand. He hadn’t known why—an impulse without thought or explanation. He had felt the thready pulse in her veins, and the chill in her skin; he’d gripped her hand between both of his, chafing it gently, willing the heat of his body into her own. And, for the briefest of moments, he had felt her fingers stir against his.

He takes her hand again now. He moves to face her, and answers her with his eyes, rather than with words. No, he tells her, unspeaking. She cannot go back. She might still travel to her clan, physically. She might dwell in their location, roam their forests, tread paths worn by the steps of her people. But she will never again return to the Dalish. She has traveled too far from them. She will travel farther still. 

Ellana nods. The smile she gives him is tremulous and a little sad. Briefly, her hand returns the pressure of his, and then she withdraws it. She straightens her shoulders. “You asked me once what sort of hero I would be. I don’t feel like a hero, Solas.”

“Heroes rarely do,” he says. He tilts his head toward the garden beyond them, the waiting palace and the clamor that continues inside. “And yet you are their hero.”

“What about you? What do you see when you look at me? Not the Herald of Andraste.”

No, not the Herald. _The key to our salvation_ , he has called her. But not that, either. Not the blessed savior he has told her she must be. She is more than that to him.

She is worse than that, for him.

“I think you are beautiful,” he says.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“It remains true, nonetheless.”

She retreats a step, hugging her arms against her. “I suppose you mean to leave,” she says. Her tone is light, but there’s a tremor in it. “When this”—she waves a hand—“when all of this is finished. Once the Fade is safe again.”

Though she speaks it as a statement, he hears the query under it.

He does not deny it, though he can read the hope in her eyes, the hurt when he doesn’t answer. The stillness is loud between them, the air thick with everything he hasn’t said. Their silence lengthens. He feels the seconds stretch. Then Ellana nods, and gives him a slight shrug. Casual dismissal that he suspects neither of them feels. She takes a step backward, and then another, edging back toward the path. He doesn’t follow.

He releases his breath slowly. He moves aside to let her pass.

Let this be how it ends, he tells himself. She should leave and he should let her. In the future, they will speak only of the threat before them. They will both ignore their attraction, that insistent force that draws them together time and again. Eventually it will diminish. There will be no more looks, no more kisses. Let there be nothing more between them than this.

Except that his heart kicks against his ribs at the very thought of it. His throat constricts. The ground underfoot no longer seems quite solid. Not yet, he thinks. A little longer. There are more moments to save up, seconds to collect.

He doesn’t allow himself to speak, but somehow she hears him. She must, because instead of fleeing, she turns toward him once again. He feels such relief when she takes his hand in hers that he follows blindly, letting her lead him through the winding paths of the garden and back into the warm candlelight of the palace. He pays no heed to corridors or walls or to the people they pass. Voices slide over him, not connecting. He doesn’t object when she opens a door and tows him through it.

It’s only when he crosses the threshold that he realizes Ellana has led him to her own bedchamber.

He stops short, dropping her hand. She moves ahead of him in swift, easy strides, halting in the center of the room. Beyond her, the windows are open. A breeze drifts in, tangling in her hair and the folds of her skirt. There’s a vanity to one side of her, a bed on the other. She trails her fingers along the edge of the bedspread, then turns to face him. Slowly, she lifts one hand and undoes the clasp that holds her hair, letting it fall free. 

The door is still open behind him, he realizes. There are murmurs somewhere in the distance, but they sound muffled and far away beneath the sudden pounding of blood in his ears.

He had worried he was hunting her. He hadn’t considered or expected that he might be prey.

He should have recognized it. He knows her. He sees the forest behind her eyes, the world she was born to. She has the instinct of a hunter in her. All night, while he has been watching her, she has been seducing him. Steering him. Leading him here.

And, well. It is working.

“Aren’t you going to come in?” she asks.

“I shouldn’t,” he says. He has said it before. It didn’t stop him then. He wonders if it will stop him now.

It isn’t right. He has told her that, too. It isn’t right—and yet here he is.

“Why not?” she asks.

There are a thousand answers to that question, some of them even valid. Some of them he could even tell her. But he doesn’t. If he is being honest with himself, he doesn’t want to. All he says is: “You have… surprised me.” A delaying tactic. Go or stay. Right or want.

“You keep saying that.”

“And I will continue to do so, as long as you continue to manage it.”

“That isn’t an answer. It’s an evasion.”

And not a very good one, he knows. He tries again. “What would your Keeper say, if she knew you had brought a man to your bedchamber?”

“My Keeper isn’t here, Solas.”

“ _That_ is an evasion,” he counters.

“You don’t approve of the Dalish. You have made that abundantly clear. Why should you care what my Keeper would say?”

“Because you do.”

Truth, for once—and it disarms her. He can see it, a flicker of doubt across her face. Her hands are clenched at her sides. Her brow furrows. But she keeps her eyes steady on his. She draws in a breath. Her voice doesn’t waver.

“We’ve said it already,” she tells him. “I can’t go back. Tonight I have no Keeper.”

“And what of tomorrow?”

The mischief creeps back in. She looks up at him through lowered eyelashes. She is a quick study, he thinks, to have spent so little time in Orlais and already have perfected that trick. She’s biting back a smile as she says, “Well. That depends on tonight.”

That earns a chuckle from him.

She seems to take it as a triumph—which, perhaps, it is. “Solas,” she whispers. “The door is still open.” And then she lifts her hands to the laces of her bodice.

It is sheer self-defense that makes him turn. He tells himself to leave, to walk away, but somehow when he closes the door, he is still on the wrong side of it. The door is shut, and he is in here, with her, when he should be anywhere but.

“Ellana,” he says, not facing her. He leans forward, pressing both hands against the door, as though it is some sort of anchor, keeping him tethered.

Her voice is soft. “Look at me. Please.”

He doesn’t leave the door, but he turns again. Her bodice is loosened, but not fully open. She stays motionless, watching him watch her. He swallows thickly.

“Stop holding back,” she tells him. “Whatever it is—I don’t care.”

She would, if she knew. He doesn’t answer.

And then she says the words that stop his heart.

“If you want me, then take me.”

There it is.

She meets his eyes as she says it, but she’s trembling. She stands there, her shoulders back, her chin raised—regal, defiant—that curious mix of boldness and uncertainty that has never failed to charm him. It is a promise, a plea. A dare.

His lungs don’t seem to be working properly. His throat is dry.

If he wants her, he marvels. As though that isn’t plain. All she needs to do is look at him, if she wants evidence of his arousal.

As though he hasn’t wanted her for weeks. For months. From the moment she first spoke to him. Forever.

And now he can think of nothing but all the places and ways he’s imagined taking her. On her bed in Skyhold, with the sheets tangled about them, their limbs entwined; on the floor; against the wall of the rotunda. In the high grasses they’ve traveled, along the banks of streams, beneath the low boughs of trees. He’s thought of laying her down in his bedroll, pinning her hands above her head. He’s imagined her beneath him, over him, his hands guiding her hips, her body bucking against his. He has wanted to take her again and again and again until they are nothing but heat and need, thought melting away, duty evaporating.

Impulses he has never acted on, because it isn’t right.

He should never have kissed her. He knows that. Not in the Fade, not on her balcony, not any of the times since. He has been selfish, and if he doesn’t leave now, he is going to go right on being selfish.

He stares at her. At first, he hadn’t thought to put distance between them. He’d never dreamed it might be necessary. It shouldn’t have been necessary. Now, distance is all that separates them. A few short strides toward her. He can cross them easily.

Or. He can turn back. He can add to the space between them—the door, closing behind him; the dark hall beyond; the cool stone of the walls. He can slip away from the palace and back into the gardens, and find a quiet place to rest. He’ll find solitude there. Sleep. He can go to the Fade, where he can deny all the physical longings that tie him to waking. The feel of her skin against his, his own body aching for release.

He doesn’t move. Not to edge toward her, not to leave. She has him trapped, as certain as any spell. He can’t look away.

A slow blush steals up her flesh. He can see the color rise on her throat, along her shoulders and the tops of her breasts. Her eyes flick away from his. Her trembling is more pronounced now; her hands are shaking as she raises them to her bodice once more, this time to tighten it.

She must actually think he doesn’t want her.

She is so brave, he thinks. Standing there before him, proud and frightened, offering herself for him to take—or to leave.

It was her will that first drew him to her. Her determination. That strength he has always sensed in her.

She is so brave. And that is what undoes him.

“Vhenan,” he says, to make her look at him again.

“Don’t call me that. Not if you don’t mean it.”

He leaves the refuge of the door. Whatever safety he might have found if he’d fled will remain forever behind it. He’d made his decision when he’d closed it. Or perhaps there was never any decision to make; perhaps he already made it that long ago night when he’d taken her hand in his.

He crosses to Ellana, tugging her hands away from her laces and pressing her palms to his chest, so she can feel the slam of his heart. To show her truth, if he cannot speak it. This at least is not a lie between them.

His gaze roams over her, sliding up her body, then along the curve of her throat and dipping lower. He reaches for the laces of her dress, easing the bodice down and freeing her breasts. He cups them, molding them with his hands, trying to be gentle, urging himself to patience, though he’s wanted to touch her for so long, he can no longer remember when he didn’t.

Ellana surprises him again. There is nothing gentle in the way she catches him by the shoulders, gripping him hard, and then shoves him backward. He stumbles two steps, and she follows after him. She steers him, stalks him, until she has him pinned against the wall. She undoes the buttons of his coat, then pushes it up over his shoulders, freeing his arms and letting it drop to the floor. Her hands slip beneath his shirt as she lifts herself onto her toes and brings her mouth to his.

For a moment he remains passive, letting her guide them. Her fingertips are cool against the heat of his skin. She bites his lower lip again, softly, teasing it with her teeth. He wraps his arms about her, settling one hand in the small of her back, the other trailing her spine. He kisses her and keeps kissing her. For now, this isn’t about urgency or haste. They do not need to rush. They have all night, and this time he isn’t going to stop. He isn’t going to walk away.

But when Ellana’s hands skim down his chest to his stomach and begin to sink lower, he can no longer be passive. He pulls her hard against him, drawing her upward, hip to hip.

There is far too much fabric in that dress, too much cloth dividing them. He grips her skirt and hauls it up, so that he can slide his hands under and access the skin beneath. His hands move up the length of her thighs, shaping them beneath his fingers. She is hot to the touch, burning. She gasps when he brings her hips back to his and holds her against his erection.

She loops her arms around his neck and wraps her legs around his waist, letting him bear her weight. Then they are kissing again, hungrily, greedily; he can’t get enough of her and she can’t get enough of him. He flips her around, pressing her to the wall. She clutches at him, trying to push herself closer. He tangles his hands in her hair. And still he doesn’t stop kissing her. He could kiss her forever, he thinks. There is no more need for lies. These are the truths he can speak. The thud of his heart, the depth of his need.

When they come up for air, they’re both gasping, damp with sweat. His shirt is sticking to him and his breeches are undone. Her gown is crumpled around her, but somehow he hasn’t managed to relieve her of it. He carries her to the bed, then stands her before it as he grasps the gaping bodice of her dress, dragging it down, over her slender hips, and lets the garment drop to the floor. Green and gold silks pool around her legs. He is on his knees before her. She is entirely bare before him.

And aware of it. She has a moment of self-consciousness, covering herself with her hands before she seems to think better of it, and instead tells him, “Your turn.”

She doesn’t hesitate. Her hands move to his shirt, tugging it up over his head and discarding it nearby as she yanks him back to his feet. Then she backs into the bed and pulls him down on top of her.

His mouth finds hers, and then moves to her throat. Her hands explore him, tentatively at first, tracing the slope of his back, curving along his shoulder blades, then slipping beneath his breeches. His own hands are restless, caressing, cupping. He can’t stop touching her, learning her body, helping her to learn his.

She’s already wet when his hand moves between her thighs. Her breathing is ragged. She pants as he touches her, as he searches for the best way to please her. She gasps when he slips one finger insider her, but her body goes rigid.

He stops. For all her boldness, he can sense the worry in her, the tension that has taken over. She hasn’t lain with a man before; he wants her to be ready.

“Relax, vhenan,” he murmurs.

“I _am_ ,” she says—and she sounds so cross that he laughs. Not his usual chuckle, but a real laugh from deep in his chest.

That only makes it worse. She pulls away from him, rolling to her side. He has done the wrong thing, he knows, laughing—but he can’t help it. She looks so lovely lying there, flustered and aroused.

But he has embarrassed her, and he never meant to do that. “Forgive me. I am not laughing at you.”

She flops onto her back, crossing her arms over her bare breasts. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“Do you wish to stop?” he asks, though he has no idea how he’ll survive if she says yes.

“Do _you_?”

“No.”

“No,” she echoes. “Just no more laughing.”

“I’ll help you,” he says. 

“How?”

He decides it is better to show than to tell. He stops her mouth with his, and then begins a slow trail downward—along her neck, her breasts, taking his time with each. Down her belly, and lower, until he reaches the sensitive skin between her thighs.

“Oh,” she says, more of a squeak than a word. Her arms lie at her sides, her hands clenched and clutching the bedspread. “Um.”

For a long time after that, she is incoherent.

She writhes beneath him, tilting her hips, twisting, panting, arching toward him. The noise she makes when her climax takes her is something between a sob and a moan; she says his name, says something in broken elvish, says _please_.

He raises himself over her, gazing down at her. Ellana smiles up at him, looking a little feverish. Her eyes are glazed, her cheeks flushed.

“Better?” he asks.

“I want you now,” she breathes.

He is far beyond ready to oblige.

He disposes of his breeches as quickly as he can, actually throwing them off the bed. But when he moves atop and then inside her, he enters her slowly. He doesn’t want to cause her pain, if he can avoid it, but easing into her is something like torture. He kisses her mouth, her forehead. He holds her face between his hands. “Open for me, vhenan,” he says into her hair.

“I can’t,” she murmurs, raising herself up to meet him even as she speaks.

“You can.”

It takes an immense effort not to move, to let her adjust. He closes his eyes, setting his forehead against hers, every muscle in him screaming, straining. She wraps her legs around him, drawing him deeper, and then they are fitted together, locked—and still he doesn’t move, wanting to let her begin, wanting her to decide their rhythm. 

They are both shaking, both gasping, when she says, “Solas.”

He opens his eyes to find her watching him.

“Solas,” she repeats. She reaches one hand to his face, drawing her fingers down along his cheek. “Please. I don’t care if you hurt me.”

Whatever grip he had on his control is lost. 

He takes her, then, as he has longed to. Faster than he knows he should—definitely harder. But she meets each of his movements with her own. She lifts her hips frantically, thrusting against him, clumsy in her eagerness, and it feels so good that it’s a miracle he lasts as long as he does. She clutches at him, clinging; she breathes words against his skin. He answers in kind, not even certain what he’s saying. He grips her tightly when his climax rocks through him, and realizes he’s been speaking her name. Repeating it, over and over. He collapses atop her and wonders how he is ever going to move again. He wonders how it’s possible they waited so long to do this.

They lie together afterward, worn out and sated, the sweat cooling on their bodies. He doesn’t speak—he doesn’t trust himself to—but Ellana has no such difficulty.

“Are you sorry?” she asks.

And for the second time, he laughs at her.

She shoves him away, rolling him onto his side with such force that he has to grip the edge of the bed to keep from falling off it. “I don’t see why that’s funny,” she says.

“I’m not sorry,” he tells her gravely.

And the truth is, he isn’t sorry.

He should be, he knows. He hurt her tonight, and he’s going to hurt her again. But he isn’t sorry. He wouldn’t take it back, even if he could.

“Good,” she says. 

He rolls back to face her and pulls her to him. He kisses her lips softly, and then kisses the tip of her nose. She curls against his chest, her head resting below his shoulder, above his heart.

She falls asleep easily. One moment she is speaking to him, and then her words trail off. Her breathing evens. He has one hand on her back, feeling the ridge of her spine against his fingers. She is asleep, but not dreaming, he suspects—she is not in the Fade. She is still here, with him, wholly.

And for once he does not want to sleep.

He doesn’t want to walk the Fade. He wants to stay with her, listening to the steady movement of her breath, feeling the warmth of her body against him. He grasps her right hand, pressing his palm against it. She murmurs something, but doesn’t wake.

Her left hand is curled, concealing the mark of the anchor.

This is the real truth, he thinks, that he has been denying, avoiding. She is not the only one who is changed. She is not the only one who is marked. She has marked him. Not as visibly, perhaps, but certainly as deeply as he has marked her.

He has been lying to himself. He has known all along that he will hurt her, that it will change her. What he hadn’t realized—what he has somehow never considered until this moment—is that loving her has altered _him_. Subtly, perhaps, but irrevocably.

He will leave her. He knows that even now, lying beside her, cradling her form against him. But wherever he goes, he will carry her with him. The memory of her laughter, the touch of her skin. This moment, with her asleep in his arms, the anticipation he already feels of taking her again. Her face. Her voice. The sound of his name on her lips.

He will leave her. But she will never leave him.

And this is the biggest surprise of all: to find he isn’t sorry about that, either.


End file.
